I turned. Scholar Magistrate Speer.

“Guten Tag, Herr Courier Elliott!” said Scholar Magistrate Speer.

“Guten—”I scowled, cut myself short, greeted him in a more Byzantine way. He smiled indulgently at my observance of the rules.

“I have a very successful visit been having,” he said. “Since last I enjoyed with you company, have I found the Thamyras of Sophocles and also the Melanippe of Euripides, and further a partial text of what I believe is the Archelaus of Euripides. And then there is besides the text of a play that is claiming to be of Aeschylus the Helios, of which there is in the records no reference for. So perhaps is a forgery or otherwise is maybe a new discovery, I will see which only upon reading. Eh? A good visit, eh, Herr Courier!”

“Splendid,” I said.

“And now I am returning to the villa of our friend Metaxas, just as soon as I complete a small purchase in this shop of spices. Would you accompany me?”

“You have wheels?” I asked.

“Was meinen Sie mit‘wheels’?”

“Transportation. A chariot.”

“Naturlich!Over there. It waits for me, a chariot mit driver, from Metaxas.”

“Swell,” I said. “Take care of your business in the spice shop and then we can ride out to Metaxas’ place together, okay?”

The shop was dark and fragrant. In barrels, jugs, flasks, and baskets it displayed its wares: olives, nuts, dates, figs, raisins, pistachios, cheeses, and spices both ground and whole of many different sorts. Speer, apparently running some errand for Metaxas’ chef, selected a few items and pulled forth a purse of bezants to pay for them. While this was going on, an ornate chariot pulled up outside the shop and three figures dismounted and entered. One was a slavegirl — to carry the merchandise to the chariot, evidently. The second was a woman of mature years and simple dress — a duenna, I supposed, just the right kind of dragon to escort a Byzantine wife on a shopping expedition. The third person was the wife herself, obviously a woman of the very highest class making a tour of the town.

She was fantastically beautiful.

I knew at once that she was no more than seventeen. She had a supple, liquid Mediterranean beauty; her eyes were dark and large and glossy, with long lashes, and her skin was light olive in hue, and her lips were full and her nose aquiline, and her bearing was elegant and aristocratic. Her robes of white silk revealed the outlines of high, sumptuous breasts, curving flanks, voluptuous buttocks. She was all the women I had ever desired, united into one ideal form.

I stared at her without shame.

She stared back. Without shame.

Our eyes met and held, and a current of pure force passed between us, and I quivered as the full surge hit me. She smiled only on the left side of her mouth, quirking the lips in, revealing two glistening teeth. It was a smile of invitation, a smile of lust.

She nodded almost imperceptibly to me.

Then she turned away, and pointed to the bins, ordering this and this and this, and I continued to stare, until the duenna, noticing it, shot me a furious look of warning.

“Come,” Speer said impatiently. “The chariot is waiting—”

“Let it wait a little longer.”

I made him stay in the store with me until the three women had completed their transaction. I watched them leave, my eyes riveted to the subtle sway of my beloved’s silk-sheathed tail. Then I whirled and pounced on the proprietor of the shop, seizing his wrist and barking, “That woman! What’s her name?”

“Milord, I — that is—”

I flipped a gold piece to the counter. “Her name!”

“That is Pulcheria Ducas,” he gasped. “The wife of the well-known Leo Ducas, who—”

I groaned and rushed out of the store.

Her chariot clattered off toward the Golden Horn.

Speer emerged. “Are you in good health, Herr Courier Elliott?”

“I’m sick as a pig,” I muttered. “Pulcheria Ducas — that was Pulcheria Ducas—”

“And so?”

“I love her, Speer, can you understand that?”

Looking blankfaced, he said, “The chariot is ready.”

“Never mind. I’m not going with you. Give Metaxas my best regards.”

In anguish I ran down the street, aimlessly, my mind and my crotch inflamed with the vision of Pulcheria. I trembled. I streamed with sweat. I sobbed. Finally I came up against the wall of some church, and pressed my cheek to the cold stone, and touched my timer and shunted back to the tourists I had left sleeping in 1098.

I was a lousy Courier for the rest of that trip.

Moody, withdrawn, lovesick, confused, I shuttled my people through the standard events, the Venetian invasion of 1204 and the Turkish conquest of 1453, in a routine, mechanical way. Maybe they didn’t realize they were getting a minimum job, or didn’t care. Maybe they blamed it on the trouble Marge Hefferin had caused. For better or for worse I gave them their tour and delivered them safely down the line in now-time and was rid of them.

I was on layoff again, and my soul was infected by desire.

Go to 1105? Accept Metaxas’ offer, let him introduce me to Pulcheria?

I recoiled at the idea.

Time Patrol rules specifically forbid any kind of fraternization between Couriers (or other time-travelers) and people who live up the line. The only contact we are supposed to have with the residents of the past is casual and incidental — buying a bag of olives, asking how to get to Haghia Sophia from here, like that. We are not permitted to strike up friendships, get into long philosophical discussions, or have sexual intercourse with inhabitants of previous eras.

Especiallywith our own ancestors.

The incest taboo per se didn’t scare me much; like all taboos, it isn’t worth a whole lot any more, and while I’d hesitate at bedding my sister or my mother, I couldn’t see any very convincing reason to abstain from bedding Pulcheria. I felt a little lingering puritanism, maybe, but I knew it would fade in a minute if Pulcheria became available.

What held me back, though, was the universal deterrent, fear of retribution. If the Time Patrol caught me sexing around with my multi-great-grandmother, they’d certainly fire me from the Time Service, might imprison me, might even try to invoke the death penalty for first-degree time-crime on the grounds that I had tried to become my own ancestor. I was terrified of the possibilities.

How could they catch me?

Plenty of scenarios presented themselves. For example:

I wangle introduction to Pulcheria. Somehow get into situation of privacy with her. Reach for her fair flesh; she screams; family bodyguards seize me and put me to death. Time Patrol, when I don’t check in after my layoff, traces me, finds out what has happened, rescues me, then brings charges of timecrime.

Or:

I wangle introduction, etc., and seduce Pulcheria. Just at moment of mutual climax husband bursts into bedroom and impales me. Rest of scenario follows.

Or:

I fall so desperately in love with Pulcheria that I abscond with her to some distant point in time, say 400B.C. orA.D. 1600, and we live happily ever after until Time Patrol catches us, returns her to proper moment of 1105, brings charges of timecrime against me.

Or:

A dozen other possibilities, all of them ending in the same melancholy way. So I resisted all temptation to spend my layoff in 1105 sniffing after Pulcheria. Instead, to suit the darkness of my mood in this time of unrequited lust, I signed up to do the Black Death tour.

Only the weirds, the freaks, the sickos, and the pervos would take a tour like that, which is to say the demand is always pretty heavy. But as a vacationing Courier, I was able to bump a paying customer and get into the next group leaving.